by L. A. Larkin
Wolfe scrambles to stand but her attacker spins around and lunges at her again, covering her head with the sleeping bag. Disoriented, she stumbles. He sits on her chest, pinning her arms down with his knees. With ferocious force he presses the padded material over her nose and mouth. She desperately tries to shift her head to find an air pocket, but he forces the material into her open mouth. She gags, sucking in fabric. Her lungs begin to burn. She’s going to die.
Wolfe has one move left: she jerks her hips up into a bridge position and manages to shift to her side at a forty-five-degree angle, unbalancing her attacker for a moment. She feels in the darkness for the knife. Her fingertips touch the handle but she can’t quite grip it. Wolfe bends a knee, forcing her attacker’s leg away from his body, giving her more wriggle room so she can stretch her hand out further. Gripping the knife, she plunges it into the man’s arm. He grunts. Wolfe shakes the sleeping bag off her face and gulps in air.
But her attacker raises a flattened palm above her nose. In one horrifying moment, she knows what he is about to do. It’s a technique Butcher has showed her and warned her never to use, unless it is literally a matter of her life or death - the palm heel strike. The killer is going to ram his palm into her nose in an upward motion, forcing fractured bones into her brain. A quick and certain death. Wolfe has run out of options. She screams.
But the killer’s open palm never reaches her face. Someone literally picks her assailant up by his coat and throws him on to a trestle table. The table cracks and collapses under the man’s weight. Chairs topple. But he is quick to recover. He picks himself up and runs from the Weatherhaven, the door slamming behind him.
Yushkov kneels beside Wolfe.
‘Did he hurt you?’
She gulps for air. ‘He . . . was going to kill me.’
She feels something wet under her nose and wipes the blood away with her hand. Her knuckles are raw where he stamped on them.
‘These are dangerous people, Olivia. You spy on them and they will come after you.’
22
Beer rushes into the dining area, his blond hair flying. He sees the smashed table and toppled chairs and the back of Yushkov leaning over Wolfe and charges at the Russian, tackling him from behind. Beer has Yushkov’s neck in an arm lock as he drags him backwards.
‘No! Stop!’ Wolfe cries, but her voice is hoarse. ‘Not him!’
‘What?’
Yushkov elbows Beer in the ribs. Beer winces and lets go.
‘I was attacked. Vitaly dragged him off me. He ran out that door.’
‘I didn’t see anybody,’ says Beer.
Heatherton runs in, followed by Adeyemi.
‘What happened?’ demands Heatherton. ‘I heard screaming.’
‘What the hell?’ says Adeyemi, staring at the broken furniture.
‘Someone tried to kill me,’ she coughs. ‘Vitaly scared him off.’ Wolfe grabs her boots and shoves them on, not bothering with the laces. ‘He mustn’t get away.’
‘Who?’ asks Heatherton. When he doesn’t get an answer, he asks Vitaly, ‘What’s going on?’ Vitaly also ignores him.
‘Olivia, do not chase this man,’ Yushkov says. ‘It is too dangerous.’
I bet you know how dangerous, too.
Wolfe stumbles to stand and dodges past her stunned onlookers as she hurries outside, forgetting her coat. The door slams in the wind as she peers out over the camp, searching for a man running away. But all she sees is people running towards her.
‘Where did he go?’ she mutters, then focuses her attention on the ice beneath her boots, searching for blood. She stabbed his arm. Ice particles swirl around her, making it hard to see the ground clearly.
‘Olivia!’ says Beer. ‘You’ll get frostbite. Here’s your coat.’
Already shivering, she hurriedly puts it and her gloves on, then gets down on her hands and knees searching for blood.
‘Tell us what you’re looking for and we’ll help,’ Heatherton says.
‘I stabbed him in the arm. There must be a blood trail.’
‘What with?’ asks Beer.
‘A knife. My knife.’
The men exchange looks.
‘Search for blood,’ Wolfe persists.
‘But why attack you?’ asks Beer.
‘You think it’s those Russians?’ asks Adeyemi.
Wolfe glances at Yushkov, who is examining the icy ground next to her. She’d lay any money her attacker was Grankin. Yushkov saw her spying on them so Grankin probably did too. But if she tells them what she overheard, she will open a can of worms for the man who has just saved her life.
‘I don’t know.’ Wolfe stares in the direction of Il-76 searching for movement, but the plane is little more than a blurred outline through wind thick with ice.
‘Vitaly, you must’ve seen who it was?’ asks Heatherton.
‘Nyet! He wore a balaclava.’
‘But was he in red? How tall? There must be something you remember?’ Beer interjects.
‘It was fast. I just pulled him off her and threw him on the table. Then he ran. I do not remember.’
‘A man?’
‘Da.’
‘Look!’ Wolfe says, a few paces from the mess tent. ‘Blood.’
Woken by the ruckus, Price, Sinclair and Matthews join the search. Wolfe’s nose and ears burn with cold but she keeps following the trail until it disappears beneath shifting ice, like sand drifting in a desert.
‘This is hopeless.’ Wolfe stands. ‘Michael, we need everyone accounted for, including on that plane. Someone has a stab wound.’
‘Now wait a second,’ says Heatherton. ‘I can’t just go over there in the middle of the night and demand they show me their arms. It’s bad enough we’ve rejected their offer of help. I’m not going to accuse them of attempted murder without some evidence.’
‘You have two witnesses, Michael!’ She explains what her attacker was about to do when Yushkov tackled him. ‘As leader of this expedition, you have to investigate. And that includes Trankov’s team.’
‘Look, I can’t—’
‘Mike!’ says Beer. ‘She’s right. We have to find who did this. And we’ve got to alert BAS.’
‘Christ!’ says Heatherton, dragging his fingers through his hair. ‘Anything else!’
Wolfe has had enough. ‘Michael, I’m going over to that plane. If they refuse to co-operate, we know they have something to hide.’
‘No, no, don’t do that,’ says Heatherton. ‘It’ll cause an international incident. We should at least check our team first.’
‘You check your team. I want some answers from those Russians.’
Wolfe leaves.
‘Wait, Olivia! I go with you,’ says Yushkov.
‘Olivia!’ calls Heatherton, running after her. ‘I’ll get everyone into the mess. If my team gets the all-clear, then I’ll come with you to see Trankov.’ She stops walking away. ‘They’re not going anywhere till the morning.’
‘Okay. Your team first, but hurry.’
Heatherton sends Beer to wake up Ironside and Harvey, as everyone else moves into the Weatherhaven.
Wolfe leans close to Yushkov. ‘You know who did this, don’t you?’
Their eyes meet.
‘I cannot be certain.’
‘Sergey Grankin?’
He shakes his head. ‘It is better for you, you never know.’
Despite the hubbub at the camp, the doors to the cargo plane remain resolutely closed like a castle under siege. Everyone on Heatherton’s team has voluntarily shown their arms to Wolfe. Rundle has an old cut on his right forearm, just above his wrist, but his fellow engineers can vouch it happened during the drilling process.
‘Well, that leaves us with the four men and one woman on board that plane,’ she says.
‘Oh dear me,’ says Heatherton. ‘This is very awkward. I mean, we can’t just go over there and accuse them of murder. I should talk to our director first, but I’ll have to wait a few hours until she’s awake
.’
‘Mike, they’re due to leave at seven. We can’t delay any longer,’ says Beer.
‘But why you?’ asks Harvey, sipping a black coffee and blinking rapidly behind smudged lenses. ‘I mean the only person they’ve been less than friendly to is Vitaly.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, Olivia! Why would engineers want to kill a journalist reporting on a drilling project?’ scoffs Harvey.
Wolfe wants to slap him. ‘I’m not waiting any longer.’
‘No, really, I must talk to . . . ’ pleads Heatherton.
Yushkov follows her out of the door.
‘I’m going with her,’ says Rundle. ‘Those bastards stole my designs.’
‘Mate, I don’t think going over there looking for a fight is the best idea,’ says Matthews.
‘They started it,’ Rundle snaps.
Beer glances at Heatherton, then follows too. The crosswind is now strong enough to make walking in a straight line difficult.
‘If this gets worse, they may have to delay their departure. The wind’s already thirty-five knots,’ says Beer, jogging to catch up.
‘No way,’ says Rundle. ‘They’re leaving.’
‘Amen to that,’ says Yushkov.
‘Look! The side door’s open,’ says Wolfe, pointing. ‘Maybe they’re expecting us?’
‘Oh shit! Someone’s moving the wheel chocks,’ says Rundle.
A hundred and fifty metres away, a figure leans down and picks up a red wedge that has been keeping one of the sets of tyres from rolling on the slick ice. The other chocks have already been removed. The figure runs up the steps two at a time and then scrambles to shut the side door. The four turbofan bypass engines rumble into life.
‘They’re leaving!’ shouts Wolfe, running towards the plane, waving her arms in the air. ‘Wait! Stop!’
The others follow. ‘Make them see us,’ pants Wolfe, her arms flailing.
‘They see us,’ replies Yushkov, running with her.
‘Get a flare,’ Beer says to Rundle.
The young man turns and bolts for the equipment shed. The other three still have fifty metres to go. Wolfe coughs on the frigid air.
The engines are warming up fast and the earlier rumble is now a deafening roar. Wolfe is close enough to see movement through the glass of the cockpit. The giant bird starts to shift.
‘No!’ she breathes, accelerating, her leg muscles burning.
The mountains cast long shadows across the temporary runway, due to a low midnight sun. Trankov must be desperate to take off on a makeshift runway, in strong winds and poor visibility. Her assailant is on that plane and she must stop him leaving. Suddenly, the engines scream and the heat haze appears to melt the Ellsworth Mountains. The plane accelerates and its long wings dip slightly to one side as the crosswinds attempt to push it off course. As the bird lifts its nose up to the sky, she sees a man waving at her from inside the cockpit. He is so tall, he has to bend down, as if in a bow: it is Grankin mocking her.
She has no choice but to watch an assassin fly away.
23
Twenty-nine hours after the delivery of the replacement parts to Camp Ellsworth, thirty sealed, pressurised canisters of water and sediment samples are loaded on to a British Antarctic Survey Twin Otter plane, watched closely by Beer, Sinclair and Matthews. Since they extracted the samples, the canisters have been guarded non-stop by a tag team of at least three people.
Heatherton has been in hushed phone conversations. Wolfe and Harvey have been kept in the dark about their content, as have the crew. People speak in whispers. Conversations are short. Tension is high. Wolfe squints at the brilliant blue sky - her last day in Antarctica. Putting on her sunglasses, she heads for the Twin Otter, backpack slung over her shoulder. She is leaving with Heatherton, Sinclair, Matthews, Price and Harvey. Destination: Rothera Station. At Rothera, the crated samples will be loaded on to a ship bound for England. The engineers and Beer, as head of logistics, stay behind to close down the camp.
But there is one engineer travelling with them: Vitaly Yushkov.
Doug Whetton, the pilot, asks Yushkov to sit in seat 2A, at the front. Heatherton is directed across the aisle to 2B, Price to 2C, Matthews to the seat behind. She guesses it must be to do with even distribution of weight. She is in 5B, next to Harvey. On the other side of the aisle, in 5A, is Sinclair. The small plane bounces and shudders on take-off. It’s like being inside a cocktail shaker. A sheepskin on the seats cushions some of the jolting. The engine noise is a constant drone, loud enough to make conversation difficult.
‘Why do you think Vitaly is with us?’ she says, leaning in close to Harvey’s ear.
Harvey has the window seat and is watching the disappearing ice sheet below with relief. He turns, but looks across the aisle at the back of Yushkov’s head. Single seats are on the left of the aisle as you face the cockpit, and the twin seats are on the right.
‘Odd, isn’t it?’ Harvey replies. ‘Did Michael ask you to stay behind too?’
‘Yes. But there were spare seats so I insisted.’
The Twin Otter takes twenty passengers. Only six are on board.
Between the gaps in the seats, Wolfe can see Heatherton at the front, fidgeting constantly.
‘Michael seems anxious,’ she says.
‘Fair enough, considering,’ says Harvey. ‘Good of you to keep schtum about the attack. Didn’t think you would. It would’ve made one hell of an article.’
‘I’ve agreed to sit on it until I get home. That’s all.’
‘You contacting the police?’
‘I don’t know.’
Wolfe closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep. She’s woken by an announcement they will soon be landing at Rothera.
Wolfe leans over Harvey in the hope of seeing something of Adelaide Island, but she only sees blue sky. She sits back in her seat and turns to look out of the window to her left, where Sinclair grips his arm rests, his knuckles white. Sinclair stares ahead as if he’s seen a ghost, his lips clamped in a taut line.
‘It’s all right, Toby,’ she shouts across the aisle, ‘we’re nearly there.’
‘Hate little planes,’ Sinclair says.
The small aircraft jerks upwards suddenly and the content of Wolfe’s stomach almost leaves her mouth.
‘Sorry, folks,’ says Whetton over the intercom. ‘Just an air pocket.’
Sinclair clenches his eyes shut until the juddering subsides. He glances her way, embarrassed. ‘Thank God I’m going by ship,’ he jokes.
‘You’re on the James Clark Ross with Michael, Stacy and Gary?’
‘Yup.’
The aircraft lurches upwards again and Sinclair’s right hand shoots forward and grips the edge of the seat in front. He swallows hard.
‘The ship has a fully equipped biology lab, doesn’t it? So you can do more tests?’ Wolfe is trying to distract him.
‘Five weeks of pure bliss. Just us getting to know the new life forms.’
Through Sinclair’s window, Wolfe spots an island of low-lying snow-covered mountains with meandering brown rocky shorelines. An inky blue ocean is dotted with floating slabs of ice, like broken bits of polystyrene floating in a can of navy blue paint. The runway’s perfectly symmetrical stretch of grey asphalt is the only part of Rothera Point totally clear of ice.
Wolfe leans across the aisle, as far as her seatbelt will let her. ‘So why go by ship? I mean, why not fly to Cambridge and study the microbes there?’
‘Because a commercial airline flies at an altitude that could affect the pressure inside the containers. To keep the microbes alive, we have to keep them at the exact pressure they’re used to beneath the ice.’
‘And this plane?’
‘It’s flying low. Especially low.’
As the Twin Otter lines up with the runway, Wolfe catches a glimpse of the hundred metre-long red and white research ship, RRS James Ross Clark, docked at the wharf, to the right of the runway. The aircraft’s nose dip
s slightly and Sinclair leans back into his seat and stares ahead, unblinking, their conversation over. The cabin rattles as they get lower and the pilot has to fight to keep the wings level. The plane bounces as the wheels hit the asphalt, pulling up just before they reach the end of the runway. The captain pulls up near a fuel tanker, then cuts the engines. Wolfe and Harvey unclip their seatbelts and stand, keen to get out and stretch their legs.
Heatherton also stands and says something to Yushkov, who is up and stretching his back. Yushkov frowns, hesitates and sits back down.
‘Change of plan, everybody,’ announces Heatherton. ‘Nobody leaves the plane, sorry. We’re simply refuelling and taking off immediately, so if you need the loo, you’ll have to use the one at the back.’
‘Mike! We can’t,’ Sinclair objects, shooting out of his seat. ‘What about the canisters?’
Heatherton runs his hands through his hair. ‘Toby, I haven’t been able to level with you for security reasons. All I can say is that the samples will be perfectly safe. I promise you no harm will come to them.’
Sinclair looks at his fellow scientists for support. Matthews, who sits next to Heatherton, and Price, in seat 2C, remain seated, heads bowed.
‘Ah,’ says Sinclair, his pale face flushed with anger. ‘What do they know that I don’t, Mike? Don’t you think I can be trusted?’
Matthews unbuckles his belt and turns in his seat so he can address Sinclair.
‘Toby, don’t take it personally. This is out of our hands.’
Heatherton gives him a warning look.
‘Given all the . . . ’ Heatherton clears his throat, ‘ . . . problems we’ve had with equipment and other things, there’s been a change of plan, which means greater security for our precious cargo.’
